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approval and pleases our minds according as it expresses its fitness for 

 the purpose of speed or luxurious travelling ; in other words, things 

 commend themselves according as they express their function. In the 

 same way a statue of Apollo or Athlete wins our admiration by its show 

 of muscular strength and energy. Let an artist colour a space with bright 

 yellows, then surround it with dark sombre greys and heavy blues, and it 

 takes a hue like lambent gold by contrast ; but change the surround from 

 the dull dark shades to bright reds and warm hues, and then it is the 

 only one colour in common. So I say that every historic phase of 

 design, whether of gardens or in other departments of Art, must be 

 judged in its setting, its date, and environment. It would be unfair 

 and absurd to divorce them, and this is sufficient reason to warrant 

 my change of plan. 



I am further assured that this method is opportune by the fact that 

 a change is apparent throughout all former methods of instruction, and 

 our mode of imparting information alike in all subjects. In the kindred 

 art of architecture the old antiquary conservator of ancient monuments 

 who restored on the pedantic rule of his collected and dry compilations 

 of what is here, and what there, is being replaced by men who not only 

 tack together the poor decrepit old body, but who can exhibit the living 

 soul of the old in the new, and can enthuse the new with the poetic life 

 of the old. 



In connection with gardens and gardening, knowledge of trees and 

 plants, that which formerly was instilled by methods of rote and cram 

 is now conveyed by the pleasanter method of demonstrating the effects 

 by visual objects, as traceable from the causes and the laws which have 

 led up to the ultimate preferment ; hence, nature lore and nature study 

 are prominent, and such sciences as botany, chemistry, classification, and 

 so forth, which formerly were run at an inordinate pace without any 

 knowledge in the student of where he was steering, are now disciplined 

 and made to subserve the object in view. 



Garden design is one of those pursuits of studied freedom where 

 observation counts for more than knowledge, where broad atmospheric 

 effects count for more than detail, and yet it owes a heavy debt to 

 the ages and to history. The practitioner is like the man who is a 

 householder bringing forth out of his treasury things new and old ; he 

 gathers the harvest which other men have sowed in the older work, 

 and also avails himself of every new purpose which is approved and 

 workable. On rare occasions his indebtedness to the old takes the shape 

 of grafting it on to the new, and representing the ideas under a more 

 attractive guise in accord with his " previous knowledge," his particular 

 coloured spectacles or telescopes, his specialized and awakened faculties, 

 without which he ought never to travel from home, and without which 

 the study of history, however specialized, is but a dry rehearsal of facts ; 

 to some men, who are ever in danger of losing the essential amidst 

 details, it is even injurious. Our indebtedness mostly arises from 

 pondering over the way obstacles were overcome and how each respective 

 traditional phase of design, each with its own set of congregated 

 features, combined to make the whole at least appropriate if not always 

 beautiful. 



